Ze Germans: "Only The IMF Can Help Greece"

Those banana-hugging Germans strike back, and by doing so, throw the rotten apple of the imminent Greek collapse straight into America's back yard: in today's edition of Handelsblatt, German politicians have said that only the International Monetary Fund is the right institution to save Greece from going bankrupt. While the increasingly irrelevant Greek rumor-spreader has been very busy over the past few days, getting Greek newspaper Ta Nea to announce that now Caisse des Depots has entered the KfW bailout syndicate, in an interview with German TV station ARD, Merkel said that not only is this yet more gibberish but that there is no legal basis for any of the rumored actions. So what will happen to Greece? Well, if former ECB Chief economist Otmar Issing has his way, Greece's dirty laundry will end up being washed by American taxpayers, because you see Greece is just as much a member of the IMF as it is of the EU, or so the Germans claim.

Former ECB
chief economist Otmar Issing provides a similar view: "My preference is
that you turn on the IMF, since Greece is a member of the IMF, not the
European Union", said the current chairman of the Intergovernmental
Commission for the financial architecture for information in this
newspaper recently the Europe Committee of the Bundestag. The monetary
union was not a state, Issing argued, but a community of sovereign
states. If you could help Greece, other countries refuse to help
little, "he said.

Not all that shocking, a Greek default (but, but, it is only 0.00001% of world GDP or whatever), it is now confirmed, would be the next Lehman:

A bankrupt government would meet not only the euro zone, but shaking the entire global financial system.After
the video of Obama, Merkel and Brown said the spokesman for the U.S.
president, Robert Gibbs, Obama was convinced that the EU would respond
"appropriately and effectively" to the crisis.On the foreign exchange markets, the continuing uncertainty sparked a new wave of speculation against the euro.According to the U.S. inspection CFTC, the number reached bets on a falling euro share price, a new record.This year, the euro against the dollar has lost about ten percent of its value.

The biggest hindrance to a Greek bailout: Germany itself, whose political parties realize they are getting closer to comparable riots as those recently seen in Greece should they proceed with what the Greek rumormonger has been dreaming of:

The head of
the CSU in the European Parliament Markus Ferber, however, rejects aid
from the EU and its Member States for Greece and categorically to
commercial banks that take part in consequence of the crisis on
speculation against the euro, to impose stricter rules."Greece is a bottomless pit. Giving now that money would be a big mistake," said Ferber to Handelsblatt Online.Ferber expressed her concern, given the ongoing crisis triggered by speculation against the euro, Greece.The CSU European politicians called for strict rules to prevent such speculation."Emergency escape must be participating banks under the license," said Ferber.About an initiative he would soon talk with EU internal market and services commissioner, Michel Barnier.

Ferber said that a German participation in an aid package for Greece was prevented by legal reasons. "The Constitutional Court has ruled in its Maastricht ruling that
German participation in a bailout of another country from the German
ratification law would no longer be covered," said Ferber.

Rather than rely on aid from the EU, Greece could try on new bonds to raise money, so Ferber."If it is more
expensive in Greece than in Germany, incur debts, then this corresponds
to market rules. The U.S. is no different if, for example, California
pays a higher risk premium than Nevada," said CSU European politicians.

Sure enough, recent PR (or lack thereof) escalations by Greece, which has so far not gotten its way, apparently have not led to any material deterioration in German opinion toward the defacto insolvent PIIG (or at least so the far more diplomatic Germans claim).

Greece's government is trying, however, in dispute with Germany not pour oil into fire.The
question of German reparations for the occupation in the Second World
War would not now put on the agenda, said Vice Foreign Minister
Dimitris Droutsas the Handelsblatt.Ahead of the visit to Germany by Prime Minister Giorgos
Papandreou Droutsas stressed the "very close and cordial relations"
between the two countries.While Athens would overcome the acute financial crisis on their own.To do this, but need the political solidarity of the EU partners - and especially the support of Germany.

The question of German reparations was open, in fact, said Droutsas."But we want that now do not make the
topic completely and mix with the current financial difficulties of
Greece." In view of the "special sympathy felt by many German for
Greece," one should not focus on the misunderstandings and mistakes of
the past but the present and see tomorrow, "said the politician:" I am
optimistic that together we can achieve much. "Regarding the meeting
with Chancellor Merkel, to Papandreou and Droutsas come together in
Berlin on Friday, the minister said that Athens was now waiting for
Government a "really strong political support."

We eagerly await to see what Greece's increasingly marginalized rumor spreader's next steps will be.

Akshully, I spent all morning tilling my garden here in NC. I set out 16 brocolli plants, 120 red and yellow onions, and 4 rows of spinach! Pontiac red potatoes and carrots next week. I should get over 1,000 lbs of potatoes this year, all out of my little garden.

I don't give a good god damn about Greece. I'm just about ready for anything that might come my way. Almost, but not quite. Need to get a few hundred more canning jars and a few thousand lids. Lids can't be reused, and they're damned expensive, too.

Got the makings of a manual handpump for my well. I'll install it if it looks like the shit's gonna hit the fan. My only regret is I'm not off-grid. If I had the money, I'd set up solar panels for 3,000 watts on a 24-V battery bank. Looking at $20K at least to do it right, getting the panels off of Ebay. The panels are about $800 each for 200 watts. I can dream, can't I?

I was in the Air Force during the Carter Administration. Shit was looking real bad then. It's starting to look worse, now. If gas shoots up to $4/gallon + anytime soon, look for things to get crappy in a hurry. We keep our three vehicles topped off, and have 30 gallons in the barn, in 5-gallon cans. 93 octane. I figure if Israel attacks Iran, I can go out and buy some more in a hurry. Here's a link to 100 items you need when the SHTF:

That sounds wonderful... the garden that is ;-)
Assuming that your jars are glas, have you considered the oldfashioned way. My grandmother used this special Waxed Crispy Paper - I have no clue what the proper name is in English - that is put over the top of the glass and strapped tight with string, while the contents are still warm. If done properly, the jar will develop vacuum, when the contents cool - keeping it air tight until use.

might make that solar setup a little more affordable. In fact they have entire grid tie systems for lower cost per watt than the amount that you gave for the solar panels. Good luck with your gardening, sounds like you have your work cut out for you.

Congrats on the garden.You will have to
try a few hens. The eggs are great and the entertainment value is priceless.
We installed one of the Lehman hand pumps and
are happy.
Check out First Solar. They are down to
2 bucks per watt
For Batteries look at edison cells
Edison cells have nickel and iron plates with
a sodium hydroxide electrolyte and last 80 to
100 years. Triple the price of lead acid thoughhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-iron_battery.
We standardized on AR 10's. Springfield M1A's and Rock River Arms LAR8 A4's with holosites
Sorry you had to serve under Carter!
Gold Bitches! Not sure I quite understand that
term, perhaps someone can explain it to me!
(but I get the general thrust of the term)

I am with you brother, getting ready to break ground here in Missouri. Whole family and my BF think I am nuts. Very weird thing happened today, was at ALDI buying food pantry supplies, (always figure I can donate those items to a food pantry if the Sh*t does not hit the fan), kid at counter asks me if I am starting a pantry. I shyly said yes, he then says, "wow we have at least 1-2 a day stocking up now. We can always tell the un-regular shoppers, they read the labels. My coworkers and I can't figure it out, all these yuppie types coming in here now. Any idea why this is happening?" I told him was probably the economy and people purchasing items and donating to churchs. My neighbor said that they had 187 families come to the church today to recieve food. When it hits here it's gonna be real bad, real bad.

We planted our potatoes last weekend. Just finished getting the chicken coop ready for the biddies. Buying a shipping container for bulk storage. Selling the house and buying a used mobile home to put on family land (where the potatoes and chickens are). Circle the wagons.

I think just the fact that we are talking about survival preparedness on a financial blog says a lot.

"only the International Monetary Fund is the right institution to save Greece [and Portugal, Ireland, Spain....] from going bankrupt."

The IMF has tripled its lending capacity over the past year, to 850 billion dollars, thanks to loans from member countries. The expanded financial resources "should be sufficient to meet demand in the coming period," he said.

Well tenaciousj looks to me Greece has to be responsible for their mess to begin with then we can talk about EU or anyone else. The EU monetary union does not contemplate huge deficits - prudence is the price of admission to the club.

This is similar to NYC getting the stick a few decades ago - encourages prudence.
Looks to me like the Germans are not schmucks to get stuck with the tab for a Greek Party and telling the Greeks to get Greek-ed. Unlike in the US were the tax payer is getting stuck will all the tabs.

The situation will be solved this week using the J. Wellington Wimpy solution. The Germans will bail out Greece, and all the Greeks had to say is, "I would gladly cut our deficit Tuesday for 25 billion euros today." Dow 12,000! S&P 1,300! Who cares what happens one year from now? Or even one month from now?

OT-- There was a Pirate captian , who was sighted by a Royal vessal , who preceeded to attack the pirate vessal, the pirate captain turned to his servant and told him to go quickly and bring him his Red shirt, after the battle the servant asked the captain why he wanted a red shirt; so that the crew wouldn't see me bleed. After awhile a fleet of Royal vessal were sighted , the captian told his servant to bring me my brown pants.

Greece wants an easy way out which means an EU bailout not the IMF. If the can't get it then they will tell the EU to stick their euros where the sun doesn't shine and go back to their own currency. This will be the end of the euro.

No, they won't. Reinstating the Drachma will take Greece back to the Middle Ages, so my best guess is when Merkel asks them to jump, their reply will be "how high?"

And it won't be the end of the Euro either. Sure, the Euro will get weaker short term, but in the long term the Euro will prove itself as being a hard currency. That is, if they can deal with Spain, Italy, Ireland, Portugal next. The latter will be the true test for the Euro. Greece? Who cares.

I think the other member nations are playing this quite well. The Greeks need to get it into their fat heads what IMF "help" actually looks like and realize they will be much better off trying to work within the EU. However, they need to get the situation (i.e. the budgets, workers and unions) under control and then the other European nations can make the argument that they are providing credit on a commercial basis, i.e. not really a bailout.

Germany is not about to riot about anything nor is it the greatest obstacle to a "bailout", but rather it is as always the Greek kleptocracy; union leaders, politicians, central bankers and civil servants, who have the most to lose. The main concern for Germany is that any too lenient "bailout" leads to rising Bund yields and rising Euro, which is the worst possible outcome.

I have said it before, but I believe there are parties in Greece who see opportunity to gain from a default, especially the unions, who don't want their members to know they have been stealing from them for years, and opposition politicians. The are desperate to find external parties to blame, such as the Nazis and the Persians, rather than admit the truth about the ransacked economy. While they are at it, they should demand reparation from the Turks for blowing up the Parthenon.

It was the Ventians that actually fired the shell that set off the gunpowder stored by the Ottomans, who, despite turning the Parthenon into a mosque had looked after it (well the structure if not the statues). Ironically the Parthenon was paid for with and used to store taxes that Athens had collected, if only they could repeat that tax collection now.

Greece is now in the GS / Soros death spiral - since our entire financial system is based on betting - and the bets have been placed, the big rewards will come with a default so that's what will happen.

It's foolish to think the UK's likely to default in a technical sense when it issues debt in its own currency. By all means get short Sterling prior to a further epic bout of debt monetisation, but I can't see any value in UK CDS.

The usual lumpfen, blinkered, ignorant German analysis. Why did we ruralize Germany after the War, as FDR wanted? Oh, I forgot, he died, and we got the chief idiot of the 20th century, the autodidact clown Truman.

But whatever. All these little plans for collapsing the Euro ignore the collapse of demand. That's a little secret we're hiding here in the U.S. We're going to spring it June-July. Ha ha!

It is surreal that they are dredging up WWII Nazi occupation that ended 65 years ago. Look what Germany itself has achieved after its utter destruction. This refusal to accept responsibility for their own plight is truly juvenile. It is a hallmark of progressivism. The Havenots don't have because the Have's stole it all away. The Man keeps them down. Hmmm. I guess the game is that, at the very least, the Germans "owe" it to the Greeks to bail them out. Very eerie.

If everyone were treated equally, that is what would happen. However, Greek people look 'kinda' like Americans, so treating them poorly might cause Americans to empathise with them and would raise consciousness. Horrible IMF terms only works for raping countries where poor brown or yellow people live.

By the way, IMF is run by .. Europe. (world bank by us) However since it takes 'em some time and confusion surrounding the issue is not helpful, Greece will probably be bailed out only after missed interest payments and acceptance of the IMF conditions.

Good f luck bondholders, cause any well developed country does feel a huge degree of entitlement when it comes to raising money. And such an entitlement will make any debt restructure compromise meaningless. Which brings us to the next question, which of the Austrian and Swiss banks are praying daily for the world financial community not to discover their full exposure.

Just wait until Axel "The Axe" Weber takes over the ECB. It will feel like a military coup. The day he takes office he'll hike rates to 2%. Then another 0.5% every month until Southern Europe is defaulting on their excessive debt at 10% annualized. The Nazis love sadism.

The Greeks chose to fight with the Communist Red Army to help defeat Germany. So let the Greeks go to the USSR/IMF for help. The IMF will demand that the Greeks pledge all of their farm-land as collateral. Cant wait to see this.